Table of Contents

Introduction: The People Problem-How a Growing Population Makes Everything Harder, for Australia and the World

1. Welcome to the World of Exponential Growth

2. The Wide Brown Land has Finite Limits

3. Mouths to Feed-Will We Have Enough Food and Water or be Killed Off First by Obesity?

4. Dying for a Drink

5. The Future is Blowin' in the Wind

6. Fewer Fish, Bigger People

7. People and Power-Population Increase and Dwindling Energy Supplies

8. Preparing Ourselves for the Age of Scarcity-the N2N Path from Natural Gas to Nuclear

9. Risky Business-Climate Change and Population Increase

10. Overshoot-Too Many People and Too Much Stuff

11. Our Addiction to Exponential Growth

12. The Search for Solutions-The Girl Effect

13. The Search for Solutions-Sharing the Wealth

14. The Search for Solutions-Curing the Growth Addiction

15. Summing It Up-The State of the World Today

Appendix: There is an Alternative to Runaway Population-Kelvin Thomson's 14-point Plan for Population Reform

Acknowledgements

Notes

About the Author

Dick Smith is one of Australia's most recognised individuals. A multi-millionaire philanthropist and adventurer, who originally made his fortune retailing electronics and then founded Australian Geographic magazine, Dick Smith has since become well known as a restless adventurer, making many pioneering and record breaking flights by helicopter, aeroplane and balloon.